Press conference of Cooperative Minister Kedar Kashyap

Raipur : While discussing with the journalists, Cooperative Minister Kedar Kashyap said that the state government had set a target of Rs 9 thousand crore for distribution of agricultural loans to farmers at zero percent interest rate in the year 2025-26, against which loans worth Rs 7 thousand 667 crore have been distributed. The number of farmers receiving loans is 15.5 lakh 55 thousand. In the Kharif season year 2025-26, 141 lakh 04 thousand metric tonnes of paddy was purchased from 25 lakh 24 thousand farmers through committees. An amount of Rs 31 thousand 275 crore has been paid to the farmers for paddy purchase.

The Cooperative Minister said that under Sahakar Se Samridhi, 515 new PACS societies have been formed, along with this, a total of 1341 cooperative societies including 351 Dairy Societies, 322 Fisheries Societies, 153 Forest Produce Societies have been formed. Out of 2058 PACS committees in the state, computerization of 2028 committees has been done. Micro ATMs are installed in 2058 PACS committees in the state. have been installed, through which transactions worth Rs 230 crore have been made. Like packs, micro ATMs are also available in dairy societies. Are being made available.

In the last 2 years, 16 new branches of Apex Bank and District Cooperative Central Banks have been opened. Presently 345 branches are operational. For the convenience of customers in cooperative banks, 169 new ATMs have been installed at the bank branch level. Machines have also been installed. There are 04 cooperative sugar factories working under the cooperative sector in the state, with which more than 55 thousand sugarcane producing farmers are associated. In the year 2024-25, 6.92 lakh metric tons of sugarcane has been purchased and 67 thousand metric tons of sugar has been produced. Rs 290 crore has been paid to sugarcane selling farmers. Chhattisgarh The average sugar recovery rate of sugar factories is 11.20 percent, which is much higher than the country’s average sugar recovery rate of 9.28 percent.

Press conference of Transport Minister Kedar Kashyap dated 12 February 2026

Transport Minister Kashyap said that under the Chief Minister Rural Bus Scheme 2025, a target was set to run 100 buses in the districts of Bastar and Surguja divisions in the first phase. Under this scheme, such villages where bus facility was not available earlier, will be connected to the district headquarters/urban area/tehsil headquarters and district headquarters. He said that for this, the state government will provide financial assistance per kilometer at the rate of Rs 26 per kilometer in the first year, Rs 24 in the second year and Rs 22 per kilometer in the third year and complete monthly tax exemption for a maximum period of 03 years.

The Transport Minister said that under the Chief Minister Rural Bus Scheme, till now 69 buses are being operated in 69 selected routes, with the operation of these buses, passenger bus facility is reaching a total of 450 new villages for the first time, and the process of operating 18 buses is under process. There is an action plan to operate 200 new buses under this scheme in the year 2026-27. He said that in the year 2025, about 15 thousand road accidents have occurred in Chhattisgarh, in which 6 thousand 700 have died. 100 districts across India are being identified under this program as zero death due to road accidents districts. Raipur district from Chhattisgarh has been identified for this scheme. In future, Durg, Bilaspur, Rajnandgaon and Jagdalpur will also be included under this scheme.

Transport Minister Kashyap said that under the Electric Vehicle Policy, Chhattisgarh State Government is giving a subsidy of 10 percent of the vehicle price or a maximum of Rs 1 lakh to every electric vehicle buyer. Under this scheme E.V. 50 percent rebate in lifetime tax of vehicles is being provided. Under this policy, 1 lakh 73 thousand 618 electric vehicles have been registered and the registration of electric vehicles is continuously increasing. At present, Rs 125 crore has been paid to more than 60 thousand vehicle owners. It has been proposed in the budget to provide electricity subsidy of Rs 110 crore in the coming financial year. He said that like last year, Auto Expo was organized in January 2026 from January 20, 2026 to February 05, 2026, in which 50 percent exemption in lifetime tax was provided on the purchase of vehicles. This facility was also given to the customers in the previous year 2025. About 29 thousand vehicles were sold in Auto Expo 2025. This year 44 thousand 826 vehicles have been sold.

Transport Minister Kashyap said that through the Bus Sangwari mobile application, information about the route, timings and buses available at the destination is easily available to the passengers. In this, information of a total of 4 thousand 512 buses has been compiled, in which 2,943 buses have been connected through the device. Bus Sangwari App can be downloaded from Google Play Store. Live location information of the bus is proposed to be provided in the app in future. He informed that Vahan 4.0 and Sarathi 4.0 are major e-governance applications under the National Transport Project of the Ministry of Vehicles, Road Transport and Highways through online portal. All vehicle related work is done completely online through Vahan-4.0 software, such as registration of new vehicles, online tax and fee payment, permit related work and various services through Aadhaar authentication. All work related to driving license like license, renewal, change of address, replacement, duplicate license, international driving permit etc. is being done. Chhattisgarh is the first state to issue online medical certificate form 1-A.

The Transport Minister said that under the home delivery service scheme of RC/DL, the driving license and vehicle registration certificate is being given to the general public through post at their current address by the Transport Department. This process of the Transport Department is simple, transparent, modern and intermediary free. Under this scheme, approximately 53.26 lakh driving licenses and vehicle registration certificates have been issued from June 2022 to February 09, 2026. He said that the construction of sensor based computerized driving test track (e-track) under the e-track scheme for driving test will increase road safety and reduce road accidents. At present, approval has been received from the government for establishment in eight districts (Ambikapur, Jagdalpur, Durg, Bilaspur, Raipur, Jashpur, Raigarh, Mahasamund), on which the construction process is being done by Chhattisgarh Housing Board. The construction work is likely to be completed by June 2026. Automated driving test tracks are to be constructed in all the transport offices of Chhattisgarh.

The Transport Minister said that the fitness check of transport vehicles has been done from time to time by the transport offices under manual method, due to which it was not possible to technically check the vehicles completely. At present, due to the operation of the Automated Fitness Centre, complete technical check of the vehicles is possible. He informed that ATS has been established at a total of 08 places in the state. (Raipur, Durg, Bilaspur, Ambikapur, Jagdalpur, Korba, Rajnandgaon and Raigarh) Chhattisgarh state ranks second after Gujarat state in India in operating Automatic Fitness Centers (ATS). He said that in the last one year, fitness check of a total of 82 thousand 921 vehicles has been done through 8 ATS. From April 1, 2025 till now, 642 government vehicles and 1606 other vehicles have been scrapped by RVSF located in Chhattisgarh. On scrapping old vehicles, 15 to 25 percent exemption in lifetime tax of new vehicles and other benefits have been fixed by the government.

Transport Minister Kashyap said that the state’s first IDTR Driving Training and Research Institute is operational in Atal Nagar, Nava Raipur from December 2021. I.D.T.R. Refresher courses for goods drivers, school bus drivers, traffic police and LMV drivers. Drivers are given training. Till now a total of 38 thousand 573 drivers have been trained. He said that permission has been given by the Central Government for the establishment of a total of 2 RDTC Jagdalpur, Bilaspur and 12 DTC Dantewada, Gariaband, Surajpur, Korba, Surguja, Rajnandgaon, Dhamtari, Janjgir-Champa, Kabirdham, Durg and Balodabazar in the state. At present a total of 83 private driving schools are operating in the state.

In the state of Chhattisgarh, it has been made mandatory to put High Security Registration Mark on every pre-registered motor vehicle. At present HSRP number plate has been installed on about 9.66 lakh old vehicles. He said that the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has decided to install vehicle location tracking devices and emergency buttons in public transport vehicles under the Nirbhaya Framework for the safety of women. At present, vehicle location tracking devices have been installed on about 2943 passenger vehicles and 5892 school buses. He said that through e-detection software, action is being taken through e-challan on vehicles driven without fitness, insurance and pollution certificates passing through toll points so that road accidents caused by unfit vehicles can be effectively reduced. At present, the process of issuing e-challan is being done on vehicles without fitness and tax passing through total 20 toll points namely Badaiguda, Bhojpuri, Chhuipali, Chotiya, Dhank, Durg Bypass, Jagtara, Jhalmala, Kumhari, Limha, Lodam, Maharajpur, Mandir Hasaud, Mashora, Mudhipar, Mudiyapara, Pachira, Paraghat, Tarpongi, Thakurtola.

The Transport Minister said that till now 37 ANPR cameras have been installed on the leakage route and 47 ANPR cameras have been installed at check posts and other places. A total of Rs 134 crore challan has been issued on 3,02,591 vehicles from May 2023 to January 31, 2026, out of which around Rs 41.58 crore challan has been deposited so far. Under the cashless treatment scheme for those injured in road accidents, there is a provision for cashless treatment of up to Rs 1.50 lakh for the first 7 days. He said that Rahveer Yojana – This scheme honors the good-natured helpers who save the lives of road accident victims by taking them to the hospital during the “golden hour”. Earlier the name of this scheme was Good Samaritan, under which an incentive amount of Rs 5 thousand was provided, from April 2025 the name of this scheme was changed to Rahveer Scheme. Under this, the life-saving Rahveer is given a cash prize of Rs 25,000 and a certificate of appreciation. Road Safety Campaign Under the Road Safety Campaign, 2400 Road Safety Mitras are being deployed to ensure maximum participation of youth, NGOs and local people to help the injured in road accidents.